AN AWARD-winning conductor from Otley is facing jail for sexually abusing two young boys.

Joseph Cullen, a married father-of-three, admitted two charges of using lewd and libidinous conduct when he appeared at Glasgow High Court on Thursday, June 18.

The offences took place between 1976 and 1982, when the 55 year old - until recently the chorus master for Huddersfield Choral Society - was involved with choirs in Glasgow.

One of his victims went to the police in 2013, sparking an investigation.

The court heard the first first victim was groomed soon after joining a choir at St Aloysius Church, Glasgow, where Cullen was also a member.

The boy was aged about eight when the abuse began, and Prosecutor Steven Borthwick said Cullen would secretly give him “pocket money".

In his mid-late teens at the time, Cullen gained the trust of the boy’s parents and would visit the family home, where he abused the boy three times.

It was while choirmaster for a singing group at St Andrew's Cathedral, in Glasgow, that Cullen met his second victim in the early 1980s.

Cullen would drive the boy, aged about 11 when first abused, to and from choir practice and befriended the family, then preyed upon the child at his (Cullen's) home, in his car, and in the cathedral's changing rooms.

The matter was taken to the police in 2013, around the same time that the first victim also told his family of the abuse.

Police investigated in early 2014, which led to Cullen being confronted at his Otley home.

Cullen was placed on the sex offenders register, granted continuing bail, and will be sentenced in July.

*In Otley Cullen was known as a cycling campaigner, and had worked with the Town Council over plans to improve local cycling facilities.

He was also welcomed to Westminster last summer, at a pre-Tour de France event, by local MP Greg Mulholland (Lib Dem, Leeds North West) and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.